A little bit of my stuff...to brush off or to savor when no one is looking.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

lilacs for them all

My mother's favorite flower is lilac. The house on Market Street where I grew up was filled with the pale purple blossoms for a few brief days every May. Even with this year's late spring they arrived as always in a big heady burst in time for Memorial Day. I picked from the one white bush in my yard and tied them in bunches with some sprigs of Royalty crab and blue bugle weed.

There were decades when I disregarded the practice of visiting the cemetery where my ancestors rest.
My father William Engel, born May 26th 1888, died October 1st 1955 when I was only two and half years old. His sister Katherine, my cantankerous aunt Kate who loved me "like the dickens."
My children's paternal grandparents are in that same cemetery... John Cashmiere Hauger who served in WW2 as a medic at the Battle of the Bulge and his wife Maryann. My adopted father, John Alois Theis who served as a sergeant during the war, but was stationed in the states.

My mother accompanied me, and led prayer at each stop within the cemetery.